gallantry. It is not at all surprising that, with these qualities, he
succeeded my Lord Falmouth in the king's favour.'

The fascinating person thus described was born in Ireland: he had
already experienced some vicissitudes, which were renewed at the
Revolution of 1688, when he fled to France--the country in which he had
spent his youth--and died at St. Germains, in 1720, aged seventy-four.
His poetry and his fairy tales are forgotten; but his 'Memoirs of the
Count de Grammont' is a work which combines the vivacity of a French
writer with the truth of an English historian.

Ormond Yard, St. James's Square, was the London residence of the Duke of
Ormond: the garden wall of Ormond House took up the greater part of York
Street: the Hamilton family had a commodious house in the same courtly
neighbourhood; and the cousins mingled continually. Here persons of the
greatest distinction constantly met; and here the 'Chevalier de
Grammont,' as he was still called, was received in a manner suitable to
his rank and style; and soon regretted that he had passed so much time
in other places; for, after he once knew the charming Hamiltons, he
wished for no other friends.

There were three courts at that time in the capital; that at Whitehall,
in the king's apartments; that in the queen's, in the same palace; and
that of Henrietta Maria, the Queen-Mother, as she was styled, at
Somerset House. Charles's was pre-eminent in immorality, and in the
daily outrage of all decency; that of the unworthy widow of Charles I.
was just bordering on impropriety; that of Katherine of Braganza was
still decorous, though not irreproachable. Pepys, in his Diary, has this
passage:--'Visited Mrs. Ferrers, and stayed talking with her a good
while, there being a little, proud, ugly, talking lady there, that was